Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Gazprom, the largest natural gas company in the world, is experiencing a moment of truth. And so, by extension, is Russia, which has relied on the behemoth for a large part of its tax revenue, and as a spearpoint of its foreign policy. The main ramifications are a shakeup in security presumptions in Europe and on the Caspian Sea, both of which until recently have seemed to be under Gazprom’s thumb.
– Falkland Islands drilling disappoints for Desire
– Books about oil: FT says we’ll be slower, more local
– How the majors see ‘business as usual’ on oil and climate
– Postponing peak oil with Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA
– Highlights from the first year of the FT Energy Source blog
A weekly review including:
– Production and prices
– UK Summit on Peak Oil
– Iraq’s Elections
– Quote of the Week
– Briefs
-California: climate change law won’t hurt economy
-Forest loss slows, as China plants and Brazil preserves
-Exclusive Excerpt: Hack the Planet
-Breaking the Growth Habit: A Q&A with Bill McKibben
-How the Conservatives dodged the climate bullet
-NASA: It is nearly certain that a new record 12-month global temperature will be sent in 2010
-The Secret of Sea Level Rise: It Will Vary Greatly by Region
-The Big Melt
-A Pioneering Biologist Discusses The Keys to Forest Conservation
According to an article in Le Monde on March 25, the US Department of Energy “admits that ‘a chance exists that we may experience a decline’ of world liquid fuels production between 2011 and 2015 ‘if the investment is not there.'” This bombshell emerged in “an exclusive interview with Glen Sweetnam, main official expert on the oil market in the Obama administration.”
The UK government took a step closer to acknowledging peak oil this week. A summit of invited participants, which took place at the Energy Institute in London on Monday, discussed with members of DECC and the Department of Transport not “whether Peak Oil would occur but rather how soon and in what form.”
Earlier this week, the UK Telegraph reported: Oil reserves ‘exaggerated by one third’
The world’s oil reserves have been exaggerated by up to a third, according to Sir David King, the Government’s former chief scientist, who has warned of shortages and price spikes within years.
-Opinion: America in 2050 — Where and How We’ll Live
-Mayor Menino Kicks Off the Largest Public Housing Energy Efficiency Project in Nation’s History
-For green homes, should energy trump everything else?
A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-Venezuela’s Power Crisis
-UK Peak Oil Summit
On Monday Peter Lipman and I represented Transition Network at an event which could potentially be the day people look back to as the day when UK government finally starting to ‘get’ peak oil. Fascinating and frustrating in equal measure, the event, “Policy Response to potential future oil supply constraints”, was billed as “a half-day workshop hosted by the Energy Institute in partnership with the Department of Energy and Climate Change, under Chatham House Rules”. For those who don’t know what Chatham House rules are, it means that the contents of what was said can be discussed, but none of it can be attributed to anyone.
Alaska — and the so-called Sarah Palin pipeline — are in the crosshairs of the abrupt surge of natural gas supplies in the continental United States. Leading the charge against a much-promoted pipeline to ship Alaskan natural gas into the currently glutted Lower 48 is former Sen. Ted Stevens. The locally influential Republican says the gas should be rerouted to Asia, and that if Alaska doesn’t move fast, this fuel — the equivalent of 6 billion barrels of oil — could end up effectively stranded at home.
It came as a surprise that last weekend Britain’s Energy Minister summoned a meeting of business leaders to discuss the government’s response to a decline in global oil production should it actually be imminent. Just last summer, a UK government formally rejected the notion that the demand for oil would soon overtake available supplies leading to much higher prices and global economic disruptions.
